Chapter 18 #2
We walk silently until a breeze kicks up and I catch the spicy cinnamon scent he wears and I’m suddenly hyperaware of him. When our arms swing as we step, our hands are so close to brushing and it wouldn’t take much to reach out and take his hand, linking our fingers together as we walk.
But…no, I can’t do that. He thinks I’m with Brayden.
Although maybe I could. We’re friends now. Friends hold hands, right?
Plus, he’s the one who hugged me after we found out Riley was going to be okay, and neither of us have said a damn thing about it or about the dance at the club that I’ve tried my best to just chalk up to a moment of insanity, but maybe if I grab his hand, he’ll know that it was okay and it would be very okay for him to do it again, now or maybe in a little while when we’ve reached the Eiffel Tower and the sky is fully dark and we’re standing under the glittering lights.
It’s not okay, though, I remind myself. Because we’re out here walking around and seeing Paris for the first time even though we’ve been here for almost a week and Riley is in a hospital bed, concussed with a torn-up knee and she likes Freddie and I’m fake dating Brayden and what a shit show this is.
“Ah!” Freddie says, grabbing my hand and making my entire internal monologue completely pointless. “Glacé!”
There’s an ice cream shop ahead and I let him pull me along to it, holding on tight for as long as it lasts.
“Glacé in front of la tour Eiffel?” he asks, in a terrible French accent when we emerge a few minutes later.
He has what looks like a Leaning Tower of Pisa cup of ice cream that’s pink and green and purple, though I have no idea what the flavors are, which makes my little cup of vanilla look pathetic. It’s still delicious, though.
Our hands are full now, cups in one hand, spoons in the other, and part of me wants to throw them away so he can take my hand again.
This is hard. Harder than I thought it would be. It feels like we’re friends or maybe at least on the way to being that again. But I don’t know if I can be friends with Freddie. Not really. Can I? The way I’m friends with Brayden? Affection and a smattering of attraction and trust. Friendship.
I glance up at Freddie, not bothering to brush away the curl that’s dangling in my eyes. More than a smattering of attraction, way more, and I care about him, a lot, yeah, but…it’s different. Just as deep, just as important, but way different.
We’re getting closer to the Eiffel Tower. I can tell because when we emerge out of a side street, the crowds are thicker, and everyone seems to be headed in the same direction. We finish up our ice cream, but even with our hands free now, I don’t dare to reach out for him.
As we walk, the streets open up to a beautifully manicured garden with green grass and fountains in a row perfectly in line with the tower on the opposite side of the Seine, rising up from the streets already lit up against the night sky, but every hour it glitters like the stars that are blotted out by the city lights.
“Five minutes till the hour,” Freddie says, checking his phone. “Let’s take a picture.”
He holds his phone out with his long arm, and we crouch down enough to get the full view of the garden and the tower behind us.
“Should we post it?” he asks as we both smile down at it.
I shake my head. “It should be just for us.”
“Like a secret?”
“No, not secret, private. Not everything is for everyone.”
His brow furrows for a second, looking at me the same way he did back in the restaurant, like something about me doesn’t quite add up, but he hums in agreement and pockets his phone.
It must be eight o’clock because the crowd gasps together as the tower starts to shine brighter, flickering strobes traveling up and down the spindly tower all the way to the top where a light rotates, sending a signal off into the distance like a lighthouse greeting boats off the shore.
Everyone else has their phones raised, capturing the moment, but we stand there watching, our shoulders nearly touching.
“Beautiful,” I say, taking in maybe the most famous light show in the world.
“Yeah.” Freddie exhales and his breath ruffles a loose curl at my forehead, sending a shiver through me that I’m sure he must notice.
We watch for a few more minutes, waiting for the show to end, and then finally the lights steady out back to the simple golden outline of the metal structure.
Turning together, we head back the way we came.
I check my phone, and there are enough missed texts and calls, not only from Brayden, but from Camille too, that I send an I’m fine, be back soon message to my coach before pocketing it again.
“Hey, look,” Freddie says as he nods and points down a side street.
There’s an outdoor skating rink. There’s a sign beside it promoting the Junior World Championships, which makes sense. Paris seems to be doing a great job marketing the event, since there hasn’t been a session with more than a few empty seats.
“Oh no,” I say, laughing. “You’re not serious?”
“Why not?” he asks, smiling, and that’s what does it. I can’t refuse him.
There’s a skate rental off to the side and I lace up the cheapest and smelliest pair of skates I’ve worn in my entire life.
Freddie’s not even wearing figure skates; they only had hockey skates left.
After tying the worn strings as tight as I can manage—a sprained ankle now would be a ridiculous way to lose the World Championships—Freddie and I slip into the crowd together, skating along smoothly while music plays in the background.
“I wonder if they do requests,” he muses, and right on cue, a song I haven’t heard in years starts to play and I send him a quick side-eye.
“I guess they do,” I say as he laughs.
“(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” was the song we skated our free dance to when we won the Intermediate National Championships, the year before my growth spurt ended our partnership.
“Do you remember this?” he asks, wiggling his fingers at me, palm up and hand open, waiting for me to take it.
I smile and shake my head. “Of course I do.” As soon as he takes my hand, he spins me toward him and we find some space at the center of the ice, away from the circling crowd. “Do you remember the steps, though?”
With a soft laugh, he pulls me closer and leans down to whisper against my temple. “I remember everything.”
He doesn’t just mean the dance, and the weight of it, wonderful and torturous, settles over me.
The steps come back easily. We worked on that routine for two years and it’s easy to fall back into the rhythm of it with the music playing in the background.
We’ve even drawn a bit of an audience as we skate, not going full-out because there isn’t a ton of space, but clearly performing rather than skating.
His hand is firm in mine, just like it used to be, but our height difference is way bigger now.
He’s improved, though, obviously. His footwork is stronger, his posture is better, and everything about being this close to him feels more like a dream than anything else.
There is nothing about this routine that would make my pulse pound, except that it’s Freddie’s broad shoulder under my hand and it’s his forehead that rests against mine when he pulls me closer as we dance.
His breath is warm against my already flushed cheek as he leans down into me, his hands sliding from my waist to my thighs, and reflexively my body responds the way it’s supposed to, moving into his momentum and letting him lift me up against his chest and carry me across the ice, my back foot popping up into the air as my hands circle his neck.
I don’t need to, though; his hold is strong and if I want, I could throw my head back and lift my arms in the air, no fear of falling.
So I do, feeling safe and protected and wild and free all at once.
The rest of the ice rink, the rest of the world, melts away so easily.
Just like back at the club, this is everything.
Being with him is everything.
I look down into his eyes. His face is serious, but then he wrinkles his nose at me sweetly and I laugh and it’s just so wonderful, the lightness and the intensity.
Then it’s over.
The music ends, the DJ barely letting it finish before he starts playing another song, and there’s a scattering of applause as we finish skating, but it brings the world back into focus around us.
“I think that’s enough,” I whisper, still in his arms after he’s lowered me to the ice, the finishing pose we stood in all those years ago.
“Yeah,” he agrees, and releases me gently.
“It’s getting late.”
“We should go back.”
Somehow the walk feels so much shorter now. Before, it felt like we wandered and time passed by slowly, if at all; now, though, I spot the hotel in the distance almost right away.
The same doorman is still on duty and he tips his cap to us, holding the door open as we make our way inside.
“Bonsoir,” he says. We nod to him before heading for the elevators.
One opens almost immediately, and we step inside.
The doors close and a faintly buzzing song plays as the car rises.
We ride in silence and get off at the same floor again, but this time Freddie doesn’t stop at his room.
He follows me all the way down to my door, like he’s walking me home from a date, and I have to take a deep, steadying breath because in this moment I want that to be true so much my chest actually aches.
“This was nice,” I say, knowing it’s maybe the most massive understatement I’ve ever uttered.
“Yeah, it was,” he agrees.
Unlocking the door, I look back at him and pause, because he’s rocking back on his heels, like he wants to say something or do something and he’s hesitating. Then he settles and lets out a frustrated breath.
“Good luck in the free skate. You…you deserve to win.”
“Thanks,” I start to say, but then he’s leaning down and his lips brush against my cheek.
My breath catches and I freeze because his mouth is right there, all I have to do is turn my head a fraction of an inch.
My nose bumps gently against his and his bottom lip slides against mine.
And it’s like a bolt of lightning explodes from my heart.
I reach out and clutch at the knit of his sweater, pulling him closer as he surges forward, my mouth opening beneath his as I fall back against the hotel room door.
It’s pure relief, reckless and heady, but the most natural thing in the world.
This isn’t just what kissing is supposed to feel like.
This is what they write those songs we skate to about, this feeling of knowing it’s right, knowing this is the person you’re supposed to be with.
And when his arms wrap around me, I want to stay like this forever and that’s the thing that sends me plummeting back down to Earth because we can’t.
We can’t do this.
“Freddie,” I manage to gasp out when his lips move from mine to the line of my jaw, “we…can’t.”
He groans, his forehead falling to my shoulder. “Shit,” he rasps. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—shit.”
“No, I—I’m sorry,” I stutter, and gesture vaguely behind me at the door while he pulls away, stepping away, his sweater sliding through my fingers, and all I want to do is pull him back to me.
“I’ll just go,” he manages, and he straightens his shoulders before nearly tripping over his own feet when he turns to head down the hallway.
I watch him go because maybe his resolve will break, maybe he’ll change his mind and turn back around and stride to me and kiss me senseless…
again…and we’ll figure out the rest after, figure out a way to tell Riley and figure out how to end this ridiculous sham I’m currently living.
Because that kiss? That was everything I’ve ever wanted and so much more.
I’m dizzy in the best possible way. I want to do that again and then tell him everything, how I feel, how I’ve felt for so long, even after he left.
But he gets to his door and sends me one last glance, before pushing it open and disappearing behind it. I wait a second and then another. Maybe he’ll change his mind, maybe if I wait another second or ten or a hundred, he’ll come back out.
Or maybe not.